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Small-sided games provide young soccer players with better opportunities to develop their skills and progress as individual and team players. There is, however, little evidence on the effectiveness of different game formats in different age groups, and furthermore, these formats can vary between and even within countries. The Royal Spanish Soccer Association replaced the traditional grassroots 7-a-side format (F-7) with the 8-a-side format (F-8) in the 2011-12 season and the country’s regional federations gradually followed suit. The aim of this observational methodology study was to investigate which of these formats best suited the learning needs of U-10 players transitioning from 5-aside futsal. We built a multiple logistic regression model to predict the success of offensive moves depending on the game format and the area of the pitch in which the move was initiated. Success was defined as a shot at the goal. We also built two simple logistic regression models to evaluate how the game format influenced the acquisition of technicaltactical skills. It was found that the probability of a shot at the goal was higher in F-7 than in F-8 for moves initiated in the Creation Sector-Own Half (0.08 vs 0.07) and the Creation Sector-Opponent's Half (0.18 vs 0.16). The probability was the same (0.04) in the Safety Sector. Children also had more opportunities to control the ball and pass or take a shot in the F-7 format (0.24 vs 0.20), and these were also more likely to be successful in this format (0.28 vs 0.19).

Polar coordinate analysis is a powerful data reduction technique based on the Zsum statistic, which is calculated from adjusted residuals obtained by lag sequential analysis. Its use has been greatly simplified since the ...

In 2011-2012, the Spanish Soccer Federation changed the format of junior championship matches played between regional-level teams in Spain from a 7-a-side to an 8-a-side format. Soon afterwards, the regional federations ...

Observational studies in the field of sport are complicated by the added difficulty of having to analyse multiple, complex events or behaviours that may last just a fraction of a second. In this study, we analyse three ...